


Lonely Under Moon and Star

by MmeBahorel



Category: Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 16:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MmeBahorel/pseuds/MmeBahorel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian's first half at Eton brought him further than his father might have wished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lonely Under Moon and Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mikkey_bones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkey_bones/gifts).



> This story forms a pair with The Decent Hem. They may be read in any order.

_You knelt a boy, you rose a man. / And thus your lonelier life began._ John Betjeman 

Sebastian had not wanted to go away to school. He would rather have stayed at Brideshead with Nanny, but his father's letter from the front had seemed very insistent. “Sebastian must go to Eton,” with three lines under “must”. Bridey was at Stonyhurst, not that Sebastian really wanted to follow Bridey anywhere, but it might have been nice to know someone.

His first view of Eton was hardly auspicious. Everyone stared at him, which was terribly distressing, and soon enough, the shouts of “Fag! Fag!” rang through the corridor. “Not you,” a voice said roughly. “The pretty one. You, pretty boy!” A boy of about Bridey's age cornered him. “What's your name?”

“Sebastian Flyte.”

“Well, Flyte, I hope you learn your duties quickly. You'll be making my toast in the morning.” He turned on his heel and stalked back into his room.

“I've never made toast before,” Sebastian complained to the rejected boy, who it turned out was called Mulcaster.

“We'd best get used to it, I expect,” the pimply child said with resignation.

“Fag!” 

The pimply boy hopped to attention. “I suppose I'll see you around.”

The boy who had claimed Sebastian first was called Wraxall. He was part of the army class, destined for the war if it lasted another year. Sebastian's duties were to wake him early for drill, to tidy his room whilst he went for volunteer work at the local munitions factory, and to carry his kit to the football field. Sebastian had no taste for the work, nor for the man who demanded it of him. But whilst Mulcaster complained of his own duties, which so often sent him to the high street on errands, Sebastian thought rather of the pressure Wraxall must be under, with so many men dead and so much danger before him, and if a boy making his toast each morning and buying his bacon for him gave him one less thing to worry about, then even carrying his kit to the football field could become a pleasant duty.

The difficulty came when boys other than Wraxall wanted his labour. Every young boy was expected to be at the beck and call of his elders, and Wraxall could not entirely dominate his time. A boy called Syme seemed put out that Wraxall had claimed Sebastian's mornings, and whenever Sebastian performed any small duty for him, he touched him whilst thanking him. It wasn't dirty, really, just odd. No one else either thanked him or touched him. Just a hand on the shoulder, but it felt very heavy.

A letter from his father cheered him somewhat. Lord Marchmain exhorted him to be good, to serve his fag-master well, to mind the priest, and “for God's sake, make friends with some boys who are not Catholics. I won't have you falling in Brideshead's footsteps, no matter what your mother wants. This family should not be so insular, not with the state of the world.” At least there was now a proper reason for him to be at Eton, and his father would probably approve of Wraxall.

The other trouble was religion. There were only a handful of English Catholics, slightly outnumbered by a contingent of Belgian refugees. The small group had a separate mass each Sunday and were permitted time for confession on Wednesday evenings, but they were expected to attend all daily chapels with their Anglican schoolmates. It was Sebastian's first exposure to the religion that dominated his country, and it left him confused. He felt he was participating in two religions, but he had not yet worked out the differences. Moreover, they were all expected to confess each week, as the college governors had no sense of confession as voluntary, and the priest took their Anglican willfulness in stride. One of the English boys was terribly noticeable and made a point of noticing Sebastian. Everyone stared at Sebastian for one reason or another, but Blanche looked at him in much the same way as Syme did.

One had to wait in a body for confession, though the priest had been given a proper confessional. Eton tended to fluctuate between regimentation and freedom in the most obtuse ways. To pass the time, if one had good French, one could listen to Prince Léopold beg his countrymen to tell him his faults so he might have something to confess, then after his short stay in the confessional, beg them for their forgiveness. Or, one could be pulled aside by Blanche.

Sebastian quickly fell under Blanche's watchful, piercing eye. The older boy looked potentially foreign and conversed in fluent French with the Belgians, but upon approach, he spoke with the perfect English of every other Englishman of his class. “Sebastian, is it? Are you like a porcupine full of arrows? Or do you make dumb girls overflow with volubility?”

There was no means of escape, so he had to answer. “Neither.”

“Of course, not yet. You are much too young. You may come it one day. I suppose I shall end up a sickly-looking man renowned for spewing volumes of sense and nonsense. I shouldn't mind the last part, but no one wishes to grow up sickly. Have you much to confess? It is so difficult for the good to rack up enough sins in only a week, which is how you see Léopold over there crying. He is a Lancelot, striving for holiness on earth. How I long to see the man's wife who will deter him at last from this miserable course.”

“Have you a great many sins?”

“Only the same one over and over. It's hard to do much else here. I vary it with a bit of lying so the priest does not grow too bored. Schoolboy confessions must be so tedious. There goes Léopold. He'll be in and out like a flash, then begin crying again. I've heard he would rather be a priest than become king, but perhaps one can't blame him too much since there won't be a country left for him to be king of if this war keeps on. I am sick to death of England, but here we are, our little lifeboat as our parents rip themselves apart. How glad I am my father was already dead. My mother is a neutral; she retains the luxury of watching from afar. I wish I were watching from further off, too, but such is my legacy.”

Sebastian had no idea what prompted the weekly floods of talk from Blanche, but he only had time to ponder them in Blanche's presence. He also proved, like Syme, one for touching as well as talking. But while Syme's touches felt heavy, Blanche's were light. Sebastian preferred Blanche's touches even as he was uncertain he actually liked Blanche himself.

It had hardly been more than a month when Blanche called to him to stay behind a moment after confession. “Do you like secrets? I can't stand them, myself, so I've simply got to do something. The word is that you're an excellent little fag, and while I cannot compel you to do anything, would you be so good as to step aside here and let me tell you a secret? You must keep it, because I can't. If you can't, then you'd better be on your way.”

Sebastian rather suspected that his life had been filled with secrets – family secrets at the edge of everything. Here was a chance to know what a big secret might be, to get a glimpse of just what his family were up to. So he went into a broom cupboard with Blanche.

It was pitch black except for the thin scrap of light in the chink at the bottom of the door. They had to stand very close together: Sebastian could feel the older boy's breath at his forehead. “I have feelings I can't really tell the priest,” Blanche told him breathlessly. “It won't shock him, I know, but he'll make a tedious fuss over it, I'm sure, and that would be far worse. I'd rather just -” He broke off in order to kiss Sebastian.

The kiss was unexpected, and a little frightening, but not so much that Sebastian wanted to throw open the cupboard door and escape the odd boy. He was glad it was Blanche and not Syme making a gesture of this sort. Blanche was strange, but in a way Sebastian recognised from some of his mother's family. He had the daring that foreigners do, completely unlike English daring. More elegant, which was an odd word to use for a boy, but Blanche was an odd boy compared to the rest at Eton. Sebastian felt sorry for him. Many of the boys had lost fathers or brothers or uncles – two of his uncles were dead, and the third was in the field, as well as his father – but Blanche had suffered his loss without the comfort of heroism or the companionship of other boys in the same situation. He might not have let Syme be so familiar, but if it comforted Blanche to kiss him in secret, he would keep the secret to be kind.

And the second kiss was rather nicer than the first, now that Sebastian could expect it. Blanche was really quite good looking and stood out for it. He wasn't a fairy tale prince like Léopold, but he was one of most handsome boys in school, Sebastian thought. Some of the younger boys wanted to be noticed by the athletes like Wraxall, but even with his ambivalent feelings, Sebastian was glad it was Blanche who had this secret. Or at least someone like Blanche.

He was less certain he appreciated Blanche grabbing for his prick. He did not push Blanche away; there seemed no point. It was no worse than permitting a few kisses, so he let Blanche feel as much as he liked. Blanche was not old enough to fag, but he was older and if he were in the same house as Sebastian would perhaps take him on next year, after Wraxall left. Better Blanche than Syme, though as Blanche was in a different house, such a hope was impossible. It felt strange, someone touching his privates, but it was for Blanche to do as he liked.

“There, now we've shared something terribly important,” Blanche told him when he had had his fill. “And the secret is yours now, not mine. Run along, little porcupine.”

Sebastian kept the secret because he had promised to, but also because he had no idea how he would tell anyone. What was there to tell? Which part of it was most important? The kisses or the diddling? Surely one should not let another boy play with ones privates, yet the kisses had felt much more important, and telling of feelings was particularly difficult.

Around the beginning of November, Blanche came to him again. “You were a little angel. Have you a few moments to spare again, I beg you?”

Blanche had begged, and the last time had really been not so bad, so Sebastian slipped into the cupboard with him again. This time, Blanche touched him a little more as they kissed, and then he asked, “Would you give me your hand?”

Having no reason to demur, Sebastian put his hand into Blanche's. He did not expect that he would be guided to Blanche's open trousers and asked to take Blanche's prick. What he was to do with another boy's privates, he had no idea. Luckily, or unluckily, Blanche was willing to instruct him in a rather overbearing fashion. Sometimes Blanche's ready familiarity was worse than Wraxall's false heartiness, but one had to pity them both. The poor things were under such pressure.

So, out of pity and an undeniable interest, he flipped Blanche off to Blanche's exact directions. It was patently strange, listening to Blanche moan in what he insisted was pleasure, but then Blanche came warm and wet all over his hand. At that moment, Sebastian felt a twinge, lower than the pit of his stomach. Was this what Mulcaster had meant about the dream he had had the other night? 

“Thank you, my dear. Don't move. Don't wipe yourself. Let me do it. One has to be careful.” Sebastian stood stock still, though it seemed an age before Blanche wiped his hand with a wadded handkerchief. “You may not be a saint, but I do think you are an angel.” Blanche kissed him one more time before sending him on his way. 

It had been a decidedly more intimate experience than the previous experiment in the cupboard. Sebastian had lacked the words to describe the first time, when they had kept to kisses and a little fondling of his childish, unresponsive prick; how could he possibly say anything about this incident when he might have begun to share Blanche's attentions? Did that make the secret his now, too? 

Not much later, a rumour came out that Blanche ought to have been sent down but the war was making it very difficult. Wraxall asked Sebastian directly, “You're a Catholic, Flyte. What do you know about this Blanche character?” 

“Nothing.” 

“You must know something.” 

“He talks a great deal about other people.” 

“Has he ever had you alone?” 

Did Wraxall know anything? “No,” Sebastian lied fluently. He had promised to keep their secret, so their secret would be kept. 

“Well, no, I suppose he was well-occupied elsewhere. You know he's to be sent down as soon as his mother can be contacted. He's no family to go to.” 

“His family are in New York.” That much seemed safe to admit to knowing. Blanche did talk of his mother and occasionally of his stepfather. 

“As soon as she decides if someone should brave the U-boats or if the lawyers should just find something else to do with him, he'll be gone. That's the rumour. What do you think about that?” 

“He must have done something very bad.” 

“Very bad,” Wraxall emphasised. “I think it important that I toughen you up a bit, make sure you don't fall down a similar path. I had to take you because I could see that happening. It's no good going through life taken for a sissy, and it's nothing a bit of athletics and self-confidence can't fix. Do you understand?” 

“I think so.” Sebastian was already used to being a disappointment to his mother and his uncles; Wraxall was very much like Uncle Ned. 

“Good. Now, be sure I've got bacon in the morning – there's a match – and see it isn't burnt.” 

“Yes, sir.”


End file.
